Displaying items by tag: filmmaker

A group of 54 artists and other art worlders has signed a letter asking Mayor de Blasio and Meenakshi Srinivasan, chair of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, to deny the Frick Collection’s proposed plan for expansion.

“Those of us in the art world who cherish the unique and tranquil ambiance offered by the Frick are urging the Frick to withdraw its proposed plan and consider alternative methods of expansion that would preserve the character essential to its appeal,” says the missive, which is signed by gallerists Paul Kasmin and Irving Blum, filmmaker Sophia Coppola, and artists Jeff Koons, Chuck Close, John Currin, Brice Marden, Frank Stella, Cindy Sherman, Deborah Kass, Cecily Brown, Lisa Yuskavage, Rudolf Stingel, and Sarah Sze, among others.

The documentary maker and writer Hannah Rothschild is to become the first woman chair of the National Gallery, it was announced on Monday. She will head the board of trustees when the businessman Mark Getty – grandson of the oil tycoon J Paul Getty and son of the philanthropist Paul Getty – steps down at the end of his term on August 10, 2015.

Rothschild, a trustee since 2009, said: “From a very young age, the National Gallery has been a source of inspiration and solace.

On Saturday, November 1, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will present the world premiere of a Joseph Cornell film that was recently discovered in its own collection. Cornell, a celebrated exponent of assemblage, was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker. MoMA holds an extensive collection of Cornell’s films, which were donated to the institution in 1995 by the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

“Untitled Joseph Cornell Film (The Wool Collage)” (circa 1940-55) was discovered in 2011 during a research project led by MoMA’s Film Conservation Manager Peter Williamson.

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art marks its 20th anniversary this year, but the celebration is bittersweet.

R. Crosby Kemper, the banker and civic leader who put the museum in motion with co-founder Bebe Kemper, died eight months ago, raising questions in the arts community about the museum’s future. Is there funding — and a commitment from his children — for the museum to continue?

“We have no thought of closing,” said Mary Kemper Wolf, an accomplished filmmaker who is the daughter of Crosby and Bebe Kemper (now a trustee emeritus).

Although major figures in the British art world including Tate director Nicholas Serota, filmmaker Danny Boyle, and artist Jeremy Deller have voiced their opposition, the council of the Borough of Tower Hamlets in London’s East End decided on Wednesday to sell Henry Moore’s Draped Seated Woman. In addition to the big name opponents, more than 1,500 signed a petition against the sale in just a few days.

Completed in 1957, Moore sold the bronze sculpture to the London County Council in 1960 for a fraction of its worth. When the sale was made, Moore and the now defunct London Council agreed that the statue would be on view permanently near a housing project. When the project was leveled in the late 1990s, Draped Seated Woman was moved to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of the Tower Hamlets, blamed the government’s severe budget cuts for leaving him with little choice in the matter. The sculpture is expected to bring in about $32 million when it goes to auction in early 2013.